


How to Ask a Rebel Out

by Callioope



Series: Rebelcaptain Appreciation Week [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, RebelCaptain Appreciation Week, Rebelcaptainprompts, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 16:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10620921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callioope/pseuds/Callioope
Summary: If Bodhi can find the nerve, she can, too. If Luke Skywalker, the greenest farmboy to ever join the cause, could destroy the Death Star, she can ask a simple question.#The Rogue One crew is not particularly adept at romantic overtures. For the Rebelcaptain Appreciation Week prompt "Nerve."





	

**Author's Note:**

> "Tonight I'll go to bed early," I said, as my muse, perched atop my writer's block, laughed.
> 
> Anyways. This is full of tropes, but I had fun with it. Also, I don't know what people in Star Wars eat/consume, other than blue milk, so, I just went with normal food.

“Just go talk to him.”

Bodhi looks at Cassian like he’s suggested the pilot take on a whole battalion on his own.

“Just go talk to him? Luke Skywalker? The hero who blew up the Death Star?”

“Which he’d never have been able to do if you hadn’t defected,” Jyn says, settling down at the table next to Cassian.

“There are plenty of defectors here,” Bodhi grumbles. He pushes his mush around his tray with his fork.

“But they didn't have to face Saw Gerrera,” Cassian says.

“Yea,” Jyn says, “and they didn’t single-handedly steal an Imperial cargo ship from a secret facility during a bombing raid.”

“But—”

Chirrut leans forward. “And they didn’t pilot Rogue One into one of the top-guarded Imperial bases to steal the Death Star plans.”

It’s a game now. Back and forth they go, naming Bodhi’s achievements, until he sputters and holds up his hands.

“Alright, alright, I get it.” He pauses, takes a bite, chews. “But what would I even _say_ to him?”

Jyn decides to let someone else answer that one, and instead returns to her rapidly cooling food. Unimpressed, she examines Cassian’s tray and starts making trades.

“Oh, so now no one has anything to say?”

“Just say hi,” Cassian says with a shrug. He takes a cup of pudding from Jyn.

“Just hi? That’s it?”

“Maybe add, ‘how are you doing’?”

Jyn snorts.

“Is that how you asked Jyn out?”

The table goes silent. Jyn slowly returns the fruit she swiped from Cassian’s tray.

“Umm…” he says.

“Or did you ask him?” Bodhi says to Jyn. She looks away and takes a bite of dry, chewy bread. Unrelatedly, she wonders if they finally figured out the heating. Hoth has never felt so warm.

“We’re not…” Cassian says.

“Come on,” Bodhi says. He takes another bite of food, not looking up. “I could use some helpful advice right now.”

Baze clears his throat and elbows him. Surprised, Bodhi finally spots the uncomfortable expressions on his friends’ faces.

“Wait. You two aren’t… Seriously?”

They blink at him.

Jyn notices her leg has been pressed against Cassian’s this whole time, and it’s not like the table is crowded. She scoots over a little.

“Why not?”

No one answers and Bodhi returns to his food.

“Wow,” he says into his tray, shaking his head. “Guess there’s no hope for me then.”

“Not so fast,” Chirrut says, tilting his head. Thankful for any distraction, everyone turns to follow his gaze.

“Hello, Master Îmwe.” Luke Skywalker smiles as bright as the sun reflecting off the snow.

“Hello, Luke,” Chirrut says. He has stopped trying to correct the title. Jyn suspects he secretly enjoys it. “Have you met Bodhi?”

“Afraid I haven’t yet had the pleasure,” Luke says, extending his hand towards Bodhi. Bodhi takes it, stiffly, like he has forgotten how to move. Luke barely notices. His smile widens. _Ha!_ Jyn thinks. Luke's face is as flushed as hers feels. They _must_ have figured out the heating.

“I’ve been meaning to introduce myself for months,” Luke babbles. “But after the battle at Yavin, and the celebration, and the move, and then there were missions, and…”

The red in Luke’s cheeks deepens under their gazes.

“Well, to be honest, I was a little nervous.” He scratches the back of his head.

“Nervous?” Bodhi’s voice quivers in a demonstration of the word. “Nervous about what?”

Luke lets out a noise between a scoff and a laugh. “You’re Bodhi Rook! You’re _the_ pilot!”

“Oh…” Bodhi chuckles awkwardly. “That… I wouldn’t… there are lots of pilots. You’re a pilot.”

This conversation may actually be more painful than the previous one. Jyn looks down into her food and begins planning Bodhi’s rescue mission. Unfortunately, she never was adept at making conversation, let alone correcting its course.

“But you helped steal the plans to destroy the Death Star…”

“Oh, sure, but that was mostly...”

“Did you need something, Lieutenant Skywalker?”

Luke’s eyes slowly drift to Cassian, as if only just noticing he's there. Then he turns back to Bodhi.

“Yes, actually. I was wondering if you would mind if I used the ‘Rogue’ call sign for my squadron. As a tribute to…”

“Oh.” Bodhi wavers, like he's ready to faint. Jyn raises her eyebrows at Baze. “Yea. Sure. I mean—if it’s okay with everyone else?”

The table murmurs its assent.

“Great!”

Jyn has never seen a happier person. She frowns.

“Well, great, that's settled.” Cassian’s tone is unusually curt, and although Jyn has been avoiding looking at Cassian, now she takes a chance. But he’s facing away from her, staring at Luke. She can’t get a read on him.

“It was good to meet you,” Luke says, sounding like he’s about to walk away, but he lingers. Chirrut clears his throat and Baze elbows Bodhi.

“Good to meet you, too,” Bodhi mumbles.

“See you around,” Luke says, and still he sort of lingers, even as he takes a step away.

“Wait,” Bodhi blurts, standing up. “Would, um, would you want to maybe get dinner some time?” Bodhi hesitates. “Umm, trade war stories?”

Luke’s smile bursts free again. “Definitely. Tonight?”

“See you then!”

Bodhi mirrors Luke’s smile, and finally, Luke walks away.

“And that,” Bodhi says, deliberately turning to Cassian and Jyn, “is how you do it.”

Chirrut laughs, and Jyn has to make a split-second decision regarding the target of her half-eaten roll.

“Hey!” Bodhi says, swatting it away.

#

Nothing goes right for the rest of the day.

They won’t ship out on their next mission for another day or two, so she gets stuck on patrol duty: a four-hour stint through the winter wonderland of Hoth on the back of the most stubborn taun-taun in the stable. It throws her twice (she thought snow would be soft, but here is the first lesson of living on Hoth: there are many different types of snow, and some types hurt to land on). She only makes it back to base because she is more stubborn than the stinking beast.

She decides a good training session will help her relax, so she changes and heads towards the gym. An hour later some soldier has her pinned to the mat, and she can feel the skin around her eye purpling. Growling, she pulls herself up and walks away, not bothering with a goodbye.

The range offers no reprieve. She misses the targets by several inches, then her blaster malfunctions, burning her hand. She tries to think of it as a silver lining—no wonder her aim was off, the thing was broken—but that still doesn't quite take the sting out of her hand.

To make matters worse, her other hand slips when she tries to fix her blaster, and a red cut sears across her palm.

The medbay is crowded with soldiers who have real injuries, so she grabs a medkit and is halfway to Cassian’s room, where she knows he is working on a report, when she stops.  

It isn’t strange, a voice at the back of her head says. He fixes her up all the time. And she can’t exactly do it herself, with both hands being injured.

But.

What did Bodhi mean this morning? (She knows what he meant. She’s been pretending she didn’t know all day, but she knows. She’s known since that elevator on Scarif, when the only emotion to best the hopeful joy of success was a growing sense of regret that she had finally met a person who fought as hard as she did, a person who understood, a person who actually came back for her over and over even though they barely knew each other, and she wouldn’t live to get to know him).

Someone bumps into her and she realizes she is still standing in the middle of the hall.

“Jyn?”

She looks up and there he is, because there he always is, and how does he even do it? Does he have some kind of latent Force powers? Some kind of sense that she’s in in trouble?

She frowns. She’s been frowning all day. Her papa used to warn that her face might get stuck that way, and she’s wondering if maybe he wasn’t wrong.

“Are you alright?”

“No,” she says. She stares up at him. If Bodhi can find the nerve, she can, too. If Luke Skywalker, the greenest farmboy to ever join the cause, could destroy the Death Star, she can ask a simple question.

She’s Jyn Erso. She’s faced scarier people than Cassian Andor.

She takes a deep breath.

“Force—Jyn! What happened?” His hand tilts her chin up, and he examines her black eye in the light. She wonders if he notices her sharp inhale at his touch. “Who did you piss off?”

Other words, not the ones she wants to say, slip out. “Why do you assume this was my fault?”

He arches an eyebrow. “Someone punched you for no reason?”

“It was—maybe.” The truth might be less believable. She hasn’t taken a hit like that in training since, well, since her time with Saw. And Cassian knows that; he’s seen her spar.

He sighs. “You can tell me, you know.”

Jyn purses her lips and shifts on her feet. Someone else pushes past them, and Force, they’re blocking the hall like Han and Leia.

She raises her hands. “Maybe back in your room?”

#

“How did you even do this?” A tinge of awe mixes in with concern. His thumb traces the skin next to the cut as he exams it.

“I told you, my hand slipped.”

“Hmm.” He reaches for a disinfectant. “You know, if your blaster breaks, you can get a new one.”

“I like the one I have. It’s reliable.” She doesn’t mention that it’s the one she took from him, all those months ago.

“It burned your hand.”

Jyn shrugs, then winces as he applies the disinfectant. This wound will bother her for days, re-opening every time she clenches her fist. Cassian sets the bottle of disinfectant aside and looks up at her. He’s trying to make a decision, she thinks.

Then, very slowly, he brings her hand up to his lips and blows softly on the cut.

She forgets all about the pain. She nearly forgets how to breathe.

“What are—What are you doing?” she asks.

Abruptly, he stops, sets her hand down in her lap. “Sorry. It was an old trick my mama used to do.”

He applies the bacta patch carefully, straightening out her palm. His fingers tickle; the cut throbs again.

He clears his throat. “Let me see your other hand.”

She holds it out for him. “Why did your mama do that?” He doesn’t answer, instead just spreads a cool gel over her hand. “I mean, does it work?” Obviously it worked. She won’t give him a chance to ask her if it worked. “How does it work?”

Even though he’s looking down at her hand, she can see the corner of his mouth tilt up slightly. “It gives the nerve ending a different feeling to process,” he says. “Like a … distraction.”

“Oh.”

She looks back down at her hands as Cassian wraps a bandage around her burn. She’s acutely aware of his fingers dancing over her skin, more so than usual, and her mind keeps going back to how it felt, his breath on her hand.

Then she notices, his left pinky is slightly swollen. When he’s done with her bandage, she lifts up his hand.

“So I’m not the only clumsy one,” she says.

He slides his hand out of her grip. “I jammed it repairing a loose wire on Kay-Tu.”

“Right.” She watches him, trying to catch his eye, but he busies himself with cleaning up the medkit.

“I can’t really do anything about your eye,” he says over his shoulder. “But it doesn’t look too bad.”

“I’ve had worse,” Jyn agrees. “Cassian.”

“Yes?”

He still won’t look at her. She taps her foot and bites her lip.

Bodhi’s words echo in her head. _What would I even_ say _to him?_

When she says nothing, he finally looks at her, his hand paused over the mostly filled medkit clutching a bottle of disinfectant or burn gel or whatever.

Still she has no words.

Well, she never was one for words.

She carefully puts her hands on the side of his face, tracing his jaw with her fingertips, and then she kisses him.

He freezes, doesn’t react, and it’s exactly how she’s feared it would be—unreciprocated. She starts to pull away, a pain deep in her chest that no medic could heal. But Jyn is good at running, and she’s already mapping out an escape route in her head when there’s a crash and splash from the floor.

Cassian’s hands bring her back, and it’s exactly how she hoped it would be.

#

After, Cassian trails his fingers over Jyn’s skin. She cringes when he presses down on the bruise on the back of her thigh, and he sits up.

“Really, Jyn? What were you doing today?”

“Taun-taun threw me,” she mumbles into the pillow. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the bump on your head.” She hadn’t said anything, too busy running her fingers through his hair. “And your toes are turning purple. It’s not quite that cold in here.”

He sighs and falls back onto his pillow.

“Well? What do you have to say?” Jyn says.

“Bumped my head,” he mutters. “On the Millenium Falcon.”

She snorts. “That ship is a flying accident waiting to happen.”

“Mmm.” He pulls her closer. “I also dropped a cargo crate on my foot.”

“Ouch.”

“Doesn’t hurt so bad now.”

“Yea?” Jyn says, leaning up to kiss him. What, exactly, had been so hard about doing that before? “How about now?”

“Better.”

#

“You two really aren’t together?” Bodhi says the next morning, squinting like they’re a puzzle to solve.

Cassian glances up from cutting Jyn’s sausage into bite-size pieces. “I don’t know where you get these ideas from.”

“Yea,” Jyn says. “You read too much into things. I can’t exactly cut my food myself, can I?” Then she steals a sip of Cassian’s blue milk.

“Right…” Bodhi turns to Chirrut and Baze, an actual couple, and even they do not eat off each other’s plates like Cassian and Jyn do.

Baze shrugs, but Bodhi won’t give it up.

“No, something’s different,” he says. Cassian arches an eyebrow and takes a bite of a sweet pastry. Bodhi taps the table, thinking. “Yesterday you were all awkward and squirmy. But today… you’re too calm.”

“We’ve got a regular detective over here,” Jyn says. “Watch out, captain.”

“How did your date with Luke go?” Cassian says.

Bodhi smiles. “Uh, good, it was good, we talked about flying, and I told him a little about the academy. Did you know he was planning on signing up? We went for a spin on the flight simulators, he would have been aces at the academy, and then we… Hey! No changing the subject!”

Chirrut giggles, and this time Jyn joins in. She glances at Cassian out of the corner of her eye, and he shares a smirk. The same smirk he shared last night, as he traced kisses down her…

“Alright,” Bodhi declares. “How did _your_ date go?”

He looks back and forth at the two of them, daring them to lie to him. Neither of them say anything, but Jyn feels the flush creeping up her neck, and she knows it’s not the heating system.

“I _knew_ it!” He slams a triumphant fist on the table and turns to Chirrut. “I knew it.”

“Well done,” Chirrut says.

“So,” Bodhi looks back at Jyn and Cassian. “What were the magic words? What did you _say_?”

“Umm…” says Cassian.

But Jyn’s got this. She takes Cassian’s face in her hands (gently, like she did last night) and kisses him. He tastes sweet and the look in his eyes is sweet when she pulls away. She spends a couple extra seconds, staring back, before turning back to Bodhi.

“And that,” she says, leaning forward, smirking, “is how you do it.”

 


End file.
